How A Nigerian Yahoo Boy’s Elaborate Plan to Scam Trump Backfired As FBI Goes After Him

In what federal investigators describe as one of the most audacious financial schemes targeting a sitting U.S. president, a Lagos-based cybercriminal’s elaborate plan to defraud Donald Trump’s inauguration fund has spectacularly backfired, leading to an international manhunt and asset forfeiture proceedings worth millions.

Ehiremen Aigbokhan, a 28-year-old Nigerian national operating from Lagos, now finds himself at the center of an FBI investigation that has frozen his cryptocurrency accounts and triggered civil forfeiture proceedings for over KSh 32 million ($460 million) in stolen funds meant for President Trump’s 2025 inauguration ceremonies.

The fraud, which unfolded in the final weeks of December 2024, demonstrates the increasing sophistication of Nigerian cybercriminals who have elevated the traditional “419” scam to target high-profile political events.

According to FBI court filings obtained by this reporter, Aigbokhan and his co-conspirators employed a Business Email Compromise (BEC) scheme that would have made veteran internet fraudsters proud.

The operation began with meticulous planning. In the weeks leading up to Trump’s January 20, 2025 inauguration, the fraudsters created multiple fake email addresses designed to mimic legitimate correspondence from the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee.

Their masterstroke was creating the domain @t47lnaugural.com – a nearly perfect replica of the official @t47inaugural.com address used by Steve Wiktoff, co-chair of the inaugural committee.

The subtle difference – replacing “inaugural” with “lnaugural” – was invisible to the casual observer but proved devastating to at least one wealthy donor who believed they were contributing to the historic ceremony.

The $460 Million Mistake

On December 26, 2024, just three weeks before Trump’s inauguration, Aigbokhan’s team sent their fraudulent solicitation email to a victim who had previously expressed interest in supporting the inauguration.

The email, professionally crafted to match the committee’s official communications, requested donations to support the swearing-in ceremony.

The victim, believing they were contributing to a legitimate cause, transferred 250,300 USDT.ETH (Tether cryptocurrency) to the criminals’ digital wallet – a sum worth over KSh 32 million at current exchange rates.

This single transaction would have represented one of the largest individual donations to the inaugural fund, had it been legitimate.

The speed with which the criminals moved the money reveals the professional nature of their operation.

Within days of receiving the cryptocurrency, they had already begun distributing 215,000 USDT.ETH across multiple digital wallets, attempting to obscure the money trail that would eventually lead investigators directly to Lagos.

Digital Forensics Crack the Case

What Aigbokhan and his team failed to anticipate was the sophisticated digital forensics capabilities of the FBI’s Cybercrime Division.

When the legitimate Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee noticed the discrepancy in expected donations, they immediately contacted federal authorities.

The FBI’s investigation, launched within days of the scam, employed cutting-edge blockchain analysis tools to trace the cryptocurrency transactions.

Digital forensics revealed that the stolen funds had been transferred to a Binance.com account registered to Aigbokhan in October 2024 – an account that had no prior transaction history before receiving the fraudulent proceeds.

More damning for the Lagos-based criminal was the IP address data.

FBI investigators traced the login credentials for the fake email accounts and cryptocurrency transactions consistently back to Lagos, Nigeria.

This digital fingerprint provided investigators with a clear geographic location for their primary suspect.

The FBI Strikes Back

The federal response was swift and decisive. On December 31, 2024, just five days after the initial theft, the FBI contacted Tether, the company behind the USDT cryptocurrency, requesting an immediate freeze of the associated accounts.

The company voluntarily complied, preventing the criminals from accessing additional funds.

By early 2025, the FBI had seized 20,017 USDT.ETH from Aigbokhan’s personal wallet and an additional 20,336 USDT.ETH from an associated cryptocurrency address (0xC7bdBA7ffB126F68E8454C).

The total seized amount exceeds KSh 4.8 million at current exchange rates.

Rick Blaylock Jr., the Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, is now seeking court approval to formally forfeit these assets to the U.S. government.

The civil forfeiture complaint filed in federal court represents just the beginning of what is expected to be an extensive international legal battle.

The Broader Context of Nigerian Cybercrime

This case illustrates the evolution of Nigerian cybercrime from the crude email scams of the 1990s to sophisticated, technologically-advanced operations targeting high-value political and corporate targets.

The FBI has long identified Nigeria as a primary source of international cybercrime, with the country’s educated youth increasingly turning to internet fraud as economic opportunities remain limited.

The targeting of Trump’s inauguration fund is particularly significant given the president’s history of controversial relationships with foreign actors and his administration’s focus on combating international financial crimes.

The inauguration itself raised a record-breaking $239 million from corporate and individual donors, making it an attractive target for cybercriminals seeking large-scale fraud opportunities.

While the FBI has successfully frozen significant assets and identified the primary suspect, Aigbokhan remains at large in Lagos.

The case highlights the ongoing challenges of international cybercrime enforcement, particularly when suspects operate from countries with limited extradition treaties or cooperative law enforcement relationships with the United States.

Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has historically cooperated with U.S. authorities in high-profile cybercrime cases, but the process of extradition can take years and often faces significant legal and political obstacles.

For Aigbokhan, what began as an opportunistic attempt to capitalize on America’s most high-profile political event has become a cautionary tale about the reach of modern digital forensics.

His sophisticated understanding of cryptocurrency and email security was ultimately undone by basic operational security failures – using his real name for cryptocurrency accounts and operating from a consistent IP address.

The case also demonstrates the FBI’s increasing sophistication in combating cryptocurrency-based crimes.

The agency’s ability to quickly identify, trace, and freeze digital assets across international boundaries represents a significant evolution in federal law enforcement capabilities.